From this weeks readings, well, all of the readings, actually, I get a sense that educators in the discipline of English can't seem to agree on much. From reading Berlin, I see that decades and decades of research in rhetoric and composition lead to theory after theory and learning model after learning model. I feel that if I arrive at teaching composition courses, I will have to do mass amounts of research to define what I am teaching. I see all of these theories as promising, to an extent, but think some can be counter productive. I think politics does play a role in all of this, though.
I saw that some people mentioned politics as a contingency as to what is taught and why it is taught. I'm not sure how well new ideas flourish in a system that is reliant on old politics, but I doubt every idea is nurtured—to say the least. This also goes back to what we talked about in class as the “economy” of literacy. It does seem that literacy, if looked at within the context of an economy, will bring a new understanding to what literacy means. Teaching what a student “needs” to learn is also part of this economy. It is practical to teach a student of engineering differently than someone who is going into English, but each is taught the same. I think that, maybe, writing courses should be more diverse and serve different purposes. I know that the basic premise of English 101 is to serve as a blanket for all skill level, but changing the curriculum may offer new jobs or new concepts into learning and teaching composition. I know they have technical writing and the such, but dividing composition a little further may be useful.
On a slightly different note, now, I would like to discuss Trimbur's article. I know that we live in America and the dominant language is English, but I would like to see some diversity. This calls to mind something that I remembered from the first day of class: I believe the statistic was that 100 percent of all college graduates from India speak some English. This is kind of embarrassing, but it does put emphasis on how important it is to know English. It is almost that English is imperialistic. I think Trimbur's ideas are ambitious, but definitely not lofty. It would take decades of work to achieve a mulch-lingual composition class, but it is possible.
Each week, these readings continue to raise my awareness of literacy in its several different contexts. I am now becoming literate of the many facets that define literacy—hope that made sense. I would also like to bring up the fact that lot of what we read is also very old. Now that we've finished Berlin, there is 26 years in which are unaccounted—at least from he. I feel like, as noted before, there is a large disagreement as to what and how to teach composition. I am curious to see where this class is going and how it can help define rhetoric and composition in the 21st century.
JP,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up some fantastic points, and the more I learn, the more I do not wonder why WAC initiatives often come with professors in different departments disagreeing about what should be valued in the writing classroom. Our discipline often cannot agree. Taking the Trimbur article into consideration, if we cannot even agree on what types of English should be valued in the classroom, I wonder how long it will take us to consider what languages should be valued.
I completely agree that it is worthwhile to look at how to change the classroom to value multilingualism, but I have to wonder how this can be done in the practical sense. Sure, it will take time for this transition, but how can we even begin? I propose in my blog post for this week that we begin at our country's borders where bilingualism is already very high. However, I do see that this is somewhat problematic as it will obviously still value specific languages over others.
However, I think your concluding paragraph puts all this into perspective. We're students still becoming literate in these issues and definitions of literacy. Thanks for your insightful post, and I apologize for my lofty and semi-inconclusive comment.
- Beth
JP,
ReplyDeleteYou raise a very interesting point here, asking about the developments in literacy debates since Berlin's text was published in 1987. Trimbur works to fill in that gap, to some extent, as his article is published in 2006. We are about to turn out attention to studies of literacy in practice themselves, beginning with Heath's landmark (1984) study next week, Street's explanation of what he calls New Literacy Studies in the 1990s, etc.
One of the subtexts of the conversation I'm attempting to highlight with these early historicizing readings has to do with our conceptualization of 'literacy' as an idea.
What are the different ways we know about/study/value literacy if we conceive of literacy as intimately tied to class and economics, as Berlin suggests? What if we conceive of literacy as intimately tied to cultural and linguistic assimilation as Trimbur suggests? What differences do these conceptual frameworks make to the study and teaching of literacy?
JP, I can't help but think of that video Dr. Serviss showed us on the first day of class when I read your response. It showed a production line and the students all coming out like little eggs - all the same. And, it said that students are NOT all the same, so why are we teaching them like they are...
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a great point that I had not really contemplated until now. The idea of developing the curriculum of English 101 to focus on what the specific student wants to study makes so much sense. Why have this "blanket course" as you call it when all students are not going into the same fields. I do not think it outrageous to suggest that education be individualized to accomodate each students' specific goals. Isn't that truly what the teacher's job is anyway? This was definitely food for thought.
JP,
ReplyDeleteWhile I do appreciate that as a future writing teacher you say you will do a great deal of research to assist in your teaching, I have to say that for myself, teaching is all in what you make it. Going through Auburn’s College of Education and learning every theory of education known to man, I kinda had to throw everything out when I stepped into an actual classroom with actual students. In the end, you have to do what works for them, and that changes with every class and every student you’ll have. The theories and research help guide you, but it by no means should be your (our) only form of resource. A little advice from one teacher to another. Good luck! You'll be great!